MediaTek sets up R&D facility in Bangalore; to invest $200M in the country

Chipmaker MediaTek will set up a new Research & Development (R&D) facility in Bangalore and has earmarked $200 million for investments in the country over the next few years.

The Bangalore centre will focus on creating affordable design solution for emerging technologies like LTE for the mid range market. MediaTek plans to hire 100 professionals from the IC design industry to join its ranks at Bangalore and plans to extend that number to over 500 over the next few years. The company said that the new center will work in collaboration with its current R&D facilities from around the world.

Currently, the company has another R&D centre in Noida, making the Bangalore centre its second in the country.

MediaTek also stated it was actively looking to diversify its portfolio in the country beyond mobile communications and looking to develop products in home entertainment and connectivity segments. The chipmaker currently manufactures processors for a majority of the Indian smartphone makers including, Lava, Xolo, Karbonn and Micromax among others.

Partnerships

-MediaTek, Micromax and Aircel had inked a strategic partnership to launch bundled device offers for MediaTek powered Micromax products including smartphones, feature phones, tablets and 3G dongles in March this year.

– Last year the US based browser maker Maxthon had partnered with MediaTek to bundle its Android browser in devices developed by MediaTek’s manufacturer partners.

– Back in 2012, the company had inked a global strategic partnership with Twitter to integrate its services on MediaTek’s Runtime Environment powered feature phones.

– The same year MediaTek also partnered with Gameloft to support its games on MediaTek powered feature and smartphones.